Madam, - If large corporations in the private sector adopted the same approach to selecting senior executives as our political system employs they would be bankrupted and out of business in double quick time.
The lunacy of the process becomes obvious in the first instance at local level, when candidates for county council elections are chosen. The most important attributes include being "well in" with the party suits, being related to someone in politics, or being a publican, undertaker, county footballer, token female, etc.
When electing people to make decisions that seriously affect the lives of thousands we don't look for qualifications, experience, education, competence, references, past achievements or even an accepted level of intelligence.
This ludicrous system is replicated at government level. Take a close look at the most senior executives of our country - the Cabinet.
What qualifies them to run the largest corporation in the country, Ireland Inc? Does their training and expertise qualify them to run our lives?
How many of them would seriously be considered for an executive position in our top multinational companies?
As revealed in your edition of November 8th, the Minister of State for Education and Science, Sean Haughey, has more staff working in his constituency office (six) than he has to cover his ministerial duties (four). It is obvious where his priorities lie and this attitude is endemic across this wasteful Government.
Our chief executive, Bertie Ahern, lives in a parallel world where he is in charge of everything but responsible for nothing. He has distanced himself and his colleagues from all State responsibilities by setting up layer upon layer of insulating committees and authorities which can be conveniently blamed when things go wrong.
Here is a man who forgets about receiving extremely large sums of money while in office (strange accountant), gives contradictory testimony to a tribunal and brazenly expects us to have sympathy for his plight. The leader of our State finds it difficult to construct even the simplest of sentences and constantly resorts to incoherent, senseless waffling - for example when speaking in the Dáil last week on hospital consultants: "The vast majority of them would form far more excessive than I would as a salary."
Irish electors voted, with their eyes wide open, for this incompetent, arrogant, out-of-touch Government and so permitted it to continue to mismanage our affairs. The electorate must share the blame for the position we now find ourselves in. - Yours, etc,
AIDAN MULLINS, Foxcroft Street, Portarlington, Co Laois.